Winter is a great time to experiment because even if it turns out to be a failure, at least it feels like forward motion in the universe.
Yesterday I added two indoor water features for the novelty and the potential to increase humidity among the plants nearby. The background plant is a papyrus that spent summer outdoors as a companion to Fountain Frog. A pump keeps water moving, although it doesn’t splash out, just bubbles gently on the surface; the 1″ hose sits below the surface of the water.
The Alocasia in the front spent summer outdoors as an ornamental water feature. A Water Wiggler generates ripples, and runs for ages on two D-cell batteries.
Some water hyacinths (Pontederia crassipes) and water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes) keep the water oxygenated and shaded and along with the moving water will theoretically help combat stagnation. Will also tuck barley around to help with algae control–would have added after assembly but I can’t face winterizing the shed yet, even though squirrels are already building nests in there. (Probably with the barley, actually.)
The containers came from Goodwill for around ten dollars each. I’ve had both plants only since the spring this year, so they haven’t survived a full year. And may not!
No extra light yet – the days aren’t quite depressing enough and I like to swoop in when things get dicey. Feeling heroic is a wintertime dopamine hit.
UPDATE 11/2/22: Tucking in little packets of barley beneath the surface today and have been giving occasional light baths with grow lights. Days aren’t yet as short as they will be and everything seems healthy except for the water hyacinths which need discipline or apologies. TBD. (Further updates below the video.)
Here’s a video.
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Next up is figuring out fertilization. The Alocasia seems dormant but the papyrus seems actively growing. Watching out for spider mites on all the houseplants but hasn’t yet been dry enough to be a big deal.
UPDATES 12/5/22:
Water hyacinths and water lettuce: The hyacinths didn’t make it and I’m not sure why but not too concerned about finding out. I tried a variety of different ways to salvage them, and they do produce cute flowers, but I could not make them happy. The water lettuce is fine and stable and propagates itself a bit by throwing little babies around. I only need one to help reduce the light that reaches the water and is another factor in preventing algae, so I kept the easy-going option.
So now I’m a snail farmer. I added a third feature with the pump that has some lucky bamboo and some pothos thrown in. (I bought a second Water Wiggler for the papyrus.) I’ll get a picture later. It’s a tall clear glass container and I filled it with barley. It is where the water hyacinths finally became too depressing to look at and I composted them, but not before they cast baby snails into the mix, so now I’m a snail farmer.
I have to find out if they are an invasive species in which case I’m going to be an invasive species snail farmer for the rest of my life because I can’t kill anything and also I can’t let them into the wild. I can, however, clean out the eggs so I can just be a boutique/artisanal snail farmer instead of going full scale industrial agriculture. If they are not an invasive species we have a small stream running on our land and I will return them to nature in the spring to do whatever it is they do wherever they normally do it. Sure are keeping the glass clean though. Also, there is something else living in there I can’t identify.
It is very important to keep that water moving. The batteries in the one of the Water Wigglers died and an optimistic mosquito laid eggs on a warm day and I spent Friday cleaning out mosquito larvae. It was only the one container, but I think if the water had been properly moving it would not have happened. The Water Wriggler does not run for ages on the types of rechargeable D cell batteries that are actually containers for AA cell batteries. I’m fine with that because I’m moving to rechargeable batteries for environmental reasons, but they do not run as long as single use batteries do.
Barley: Little mesh bags with barley seem to be helping to keep the water clean. There is no smell and the containers aren’t slimy. I top the water off but have only cleaned them up once with the exception of the Mosquito Incident which I’m going to forget about as quickly as possible.
Alocasia and papyrus: The Alocasia is sturdy but largely dormant. No new leaves. The papyrus continues to put out new growth and when one stem gets ridiculously tall, I’ll trim that one out. I have supplemental light and give them light baths, a few hours at a time. Otherwise they get what they get from the western window.
Friends and neighbors: Now also living in that same cluster of plants are a hibiscus, lemon trees, a Colocasia (lives in soil, not water, does get leggy in winter), ) Oncidium orchids, and an aloe.
Fertilizing: Nothing about them seems to suggest they need fertilizing of any kind. Will think about it in February. Maybe.
Next update after Christmas; we’ll see how they do. Can’t actually believe they’re still alive.